I can empathise with you , these boats definitely keep you busy ! 1000 mile trip wow what a journey - what was the crossing like?

been flat out with boat i've hardly had much time to post any recent pictures but to date i've done the following:- ...and yes pictures uploading !

1) rudder stocks refitted with new seals (old ones were seeping)2) sea-cocks replaced , (just as well because there were holes in the threads )3) Exhaust piece replaced (the bit that goes between bulkheads) This was almost completely shot and water was leaking into the bilges when the engine running 4) The new galley electrics have been prepped and ready to go 5) All my roof panels in aft cabin , ive started replacing the material with oyster suede 6) Aft deck railings have been removed, (there are no washers under the deck so the bolts are tight to the fibreglass - bad design there ) So, we've made up stainless steel square ones , re-bonded from the top and bottom with SikaFlex marine grade , then tighten up really tight before being covered in CT1 silicone on the bottom. I have a picture of this to illustrate. Then we've finished off just making the silicone tidy around the deck fittings. Its well water tight now. !!7) shower controls all replaced with new units

What my next job is ....

Strip bathrooms and replace with a new product that is plastic . White rock its called, or similar whichever is easier. All the shower controls have been replaced . *** NEW GALLEY gets fitted in two weeks ..... watch this space

Thats it for now and i look forward to getting some fresh pictures up for you

Ross

Last edited by TurboRoss on Fri Mar 02, 2018 7:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes the delivery journey was from Gosport to Shetland via the Caledonian Canal. The weather was not the best and the boat did better that the two crew! Needless to say, it's been home a year now and the restoration is still well undeway! At the moment, I'm still fixing the broken stuff, not even moved onto the "nice to do" jobs list yet apart from replacing all the electronics with Raymarine gear.

I see you mention the rudder seals. As it happens, I have one rudder dropped just now for the very same thing. The stb'd one was leaking which turned out to be beacuse the split carried ring, which is threaded on to the stock, had slackened off and the rudder dropped about 5mm. What I did notice is that the stock runs inside two teflon bushes, top and bottom in the rudder tube. The seals I came across were only O-Rings, is this the same as you have?

One of my next tasks will be to re-headline the interior, all needing doing, a task I am not looking forward to. Unfortunately with all the inside work going on, the outside has become neglected but I'm hoping for some good weather sometime in the next while to wash and polish again.

So whats been going on here , well quite a bit actually . Aft deck handrails have been removed and replaced, bonded in , the galley is underway at present ...see pictures - just about to be fitted THIS WEEK !!!

Electrics wise we now have fully functional lit galley steps , flybridge steps , and rear bathing platform lights Also just fitted a new glomex TV aerial. The whole boat has been fully rewired , cost on that over £5k i know its high but theres a lot of wires and the hours it has taken has nearly wiped me out in time , but i want the boat right. Everything works a treat, with a couple of extra fancy bits here and there .

New oven, hob, sink, taps , fridge going in Saturday once the units are in.

On the pictures you will see that we are almost ready to re-fit. Ive had to order some new white head lining material to sort out that old saggy one in the pictures .

Ill post a good few pictures of the new galley on Friday - watch this space and transformation ...!

Then after that i'll be moving on to forward cabin, saloon and aft cabin ... got quite big plans for those areas

i'd also be interested to see your additional lighting if you get chance? I've fitted flybridge step lights, and am very happy with them but really wanted to extend them into the flybridge but couldn't find any way to access the inside of the starboard side.

I was also thinking off adding a couple of small lights under the bathing platform, I assume you drilled through into the interior under the platform to run the wires though?

I bet you're looking forward to reconstruction now! My boat looks as if a bomb's hit it inside, been tackling the leak on the port fuel tank, very much hoping to get it all back together this weekend.

Chris - ive fitted flybridge steps lights and more on the steps down to the galley , and yes drilled through the hull to fit the blue neon under the bathing platform , ran the cables through past the steering controls

TurboRoss wrote:Chris - ive fitted flybridge steps lights and more on the steps down to the galley , and yes drilled through the hull to fit the blue neon under the bathing platform , ran the cables through past the steering controls

can take pictures if you like?

Ross

Ross, that's looking superb, well done! Was wondering how you were getting on, I know how even minor jobs seem to escalate on boats let alone a major refit!

Don't worry about the pictures, I really don't know if I'm going to do it or not. The water on the Medway is a thick, sparkling brown so they'd only get used on holidays and coastal jaunts but good to know you just drilled through. I may rig up a temporary light just to see if it was worth doing when we come out in the summer.

This thread makes for fantastic reading and glad it is coming together, how far off the finishing line are you now?

I finally got the bottom of my over heating issue (I hope). I removed the cap that covered the top of the heat exchanger element and found lots of broken impeller bits.

heat exchanger before

It is a bit annoying becuase when the impellers have been changed it is pretty obvious where the missing bits have gone so why were they not removed? I also had a bit of scaling so I went to work with the Rydlme on both engines which appears to have done its job judging by what got flushed out into the bucket.

heat exchanger after

Sadly I did have the expense of replacing one of the heat exchanger housings due to damaged cause by attempting to remove a seized and corroded bolt.

(severn) Thats not good news about the heat exchanger - ill definitely check mine now i've seen that . Funny because when i was cleaning out the bilges on my boat , trawling through all the old sticky engine oil , i was finding all sorts of bits down there and i came across what looked like some of those impeller bits in your photo...

I'm a good way off yet with the boat , heres the to do/ done list :-

Re-fit the aft cabin back out, re fit all new lights and laminate the cabinets , change the handles Strip out the aft heads , this we are tackling next week... all that wall paper is well stuck down ! Saloon - attend to the woodwork, collect the seating from the upholsterers and re fit it all in Forward heads - same again here ...Front cabin. we've decided to paint the cabinetry in here , sounds way too dark but a black brown colour . Its got plenty of light colours going on in there - we've got silver upholstery , carpets , the usual white vinyl walls and ceilings and we are changing the spot lights for polished stainless steel , same with the reading lights . The whole boat has been re-wired so we've got extra plug sockets and USB charging points everywhere ... Re-fit the new vinyl onto the sider walls around the port holes (see pic) Re carpet the whole boat New curtains to be fitted (they are almost all made now ) New wiper arms ( fitted today ) Wiper motors were taken off and stripped , cleaned and all working now New graphics all round (already have them ready when it comes out again )

Ive had a full day on the boat today - and i've removed the davits - they were very heavy !! Im going to fit my tender on a different way , including a new boarding method which i've designed , but ill wait until its all fitted before i post the pictures ... so, the davits have come off and i've given the boat a quick machine polish just to keep it looking good on the berth

The engineer has been in this week and nearly all the main oil pipes were leaking oil into the bilges! . £200 each and i've got 4 new ones going on , plus an alternator . Once these motors have been freshened up i'm going to take her out for a good run. This boat sat in a marina for 3 years untouched before made the purchase , so i really havent enjoyed it yet and probably wont this year with the list of work i'm getting through .

The flybridge windscreen has been ordered and will be ready soon (1 more week ), so im looking forward to fitting that back on. Ive gone for a different tint this time

The radar arch - ive had a new stainless steel platform made for the very top to take the lights and things , and also the radar (not bought one yet as too much to buy first , but wires in place ready). Thats getting fitted next week too .

So its been a very busy day so much to do inside and out, its taking way longer than i thought but at the end of it all she will be a very nice boat with many years of stirling service to give ...

More pictures on the way , watch this space for engine pics, forward cabin and the stripping of the heads ..

Fingers crossed the bits of impeller in your bilge was what was removed from the heat exchanger. I would be very careful if you are going to take them apart so you dont do what I did because the housing is not cheap to replace, not that anything is cheap to replace on a boat! I suppose the good news is that new parts are still available. I only took apart the engine heat exchangers I left the charge air coolers for two reasons. The first reason was once I took the top off the engine heat exchanger and removed the pipe that went to the charge cooler I could see the top of the inlet side of the charge air cooler heat exchanger element and it was free from debris.

inlet of charge air cooler all clear

The second was that anything that found its way through the engine heat exchanger I thought would surely find its way through the charge cooler as well so to avoid breaking any further seized bolts Ieft them well alone.

I had to remove the exchanger elements, the port was easy enough I had to do this one anyway due replacing the housing. The starboard one was extermely difficult to work on due to the limited space between the fuel tank and the heat exchanger. The starboard one had to be removed due to a damaged seal on top of the exchanger element when lifting the top off (this happened on both), to replace the seal it has to be lifted which means removing the sealing ring on the bottom that retains the engine coolant so it has to be drained as well.

I also had a cross threaded drain plug on the port element so I had to have it tapped. When I removed it to drain the raw water it was at an angle so I assume at some point in time it had been cross threaded and forced in to make it seal, I was not going to leave it in that condition because I didnt want to over tighten it to make it seal and potentially cause further damage.

If you are worried that there may be something in there I would just remove pipe going from the impeller housing to the inlet side of the heat changer. It is only 6 bolts (4 that hold the pipe on top of the impeller housing and two on top of the heat exchanger that secure the clip that hold the pipe in place) and once the pipe is out of the way you can shine a torch in to see the inlet side of the heat exchanger. With the pipe off it also gave me a point at which to flush the Rydlyme through, I took off the pipe that connected to the exhaust to return it to the bucket.

It is good to see your boat coming along nicely, an awful lot of work but it will be worth it. I cant wait to see your new boarding method and tender storage solution. Keep up the good work the finishing line is getting closer.

Severn, I have my heat exchanger off at the moment for the same reason, one of the bolts just twisted off and left the stud behind. I tried to get it out with an extractor which consequently snapped off...

A friend of mine is going to help me drill and tap a new thread next to the broken one and hopefully that will do it (he has a wealth of knowledge and a very impressive workshop) so fingers crossed!

I feel your pain its not good is it. Hopefully it is your port engine as the starboard one is a pain in the stern.

Did you have an overheating issue as well, if so did you identify the cause?

I am taking my old housing to a friends garage to see if he can use what I understand to be a heat induction tool thingy. Apparently it works better than taking a torch to the bolt to heat it up. Hopefully I can get it out without damaging the housing, refurb it and keep it as a spare.

I feel your pain its not good is it. Hopefully it is your port engine as the starboard one is a pain in the stern.

Did you have an overheating issue as well, if so did you identify the cause?

I am taking my old housing to a friends garage to see if he can use what I understand to be a heat induction tool thingy. Apparently it works better than taking a torch to the bolt to heat it up. Hopefully I can get it out without damaging the housing, refurb it and keep it as a spare.

it is the port engine, so was fairly easy to remove. It's not actually overheating, I had a leak on the top of the charge air cooler and thought I had to remove all the pipework to get the cap off (seems I didn't after all that)Anyway, cured the leak on the CAC but the cooling heat exchanger then started leaking from the bottom. With that, and the sheared bolt in the top, I decided to remove it to get it sorted. I also wanted to see if the core could be removed just from the top as the starboard side although not overheating, is running a bit hot...

Both engines ran a little hot when I first got the boat, I just ran some fernox 22 through the system (cheaper than rydlime) which did a good job for nearly two years but it needs sorting again now. I was going to remove the cores on the starboard side and try to clean everything properly but given the experience with the port one, I think I'll just flush it through again and not disturb any bolts! So, I'm fairly sure my running hot issue was/is just down to scaling.

I wonder if that heat induction thing is the same system my friend told me about. He showed me a video of it, and has explained it a couple of time, but I have to admit I still don't understand it at all but basically it somehow burns the stud out without damaging anything else. He said that it would definitely fix my issue but he doesn't have access to the kit any more.